Random Bits in Ultimate Randomness

As I was noting back a couple of readers yesterday, I realized that between the notes was some stuff I've never mentioned that might give y'all a little insight into why I am the way I am: smart, capable, but defeatist. Speaking of those notes, I do apologize. It seems like my responses to any notes I'm left are almost journal entries all on their own. The way I see it though, unlike some people, I do take the time to write out a carefully thought out response to the questions I am asked because I value the comments I get and feel that if someone takes the time to read some of the depressing crap I write, they deserve my very best in response. So thanks to those of you who note, and for those who read but don't write back, I say: a.) I won't bite and b.) No worries. I just hope you are enjoying this or that it brings calm or comfort to you in some way, even if I don't know about it. Now, on with the entry...

So why is it that I seem to be such a defeatist? I am not saying this next part to sound like an arrogant asshole, but I know I am a very smart, articulate guy, even though it might take a little bit of exposition to get my point across. And yes, I know I use some big words here and there, and I don't do it to sound pretentious, it's just how I talk. I learn words, and I use them if they apply to the situation. It just happens I was not too bad at vocab lessons back in school. And that is where the problems really started for me: back in 5th and 6th grade. A couple of things happened then that altered my personality significantly. See, one of the things that my hometown did was, for 4th and 5th graders who showed above average intelligence and scored in the 99th percentile in the testing they used to do, there was a special class they could go to one or two Tuesdays out of every month. It was referred to as the Hollis program, after the school where it was taught. High school teachers would come and teach a class to these kids to challenge them and, presumably, help them do something more on their level. So why does this apply to me? Well, I never was asked to go to it, but back in elementary school, I know I test just as well or better than some of the students who were asked to go. I didn't think much of it in 4th grade, but in 5th grade, there was a school psychologist whose name I don't remember, which is pretty good for her cause if I was a litigious person like alot of Americans, I would consider suing the hell out of this woman for the direction my life has gone in. However, I am not litigious and I do realize my problems are not her fault, though they have a kernel of beginning there. See, we apparently did some sort of IQ testing in 5th grade and, after the fact, we had a conference with this psychologist about our scores. That was when I found out that, at least at that age, I was technically a genius. I had scored an IQ of 142 on this test. Not super genius, but the standard for being considered a genius is 140, so I passed at least. Anyhow, this isn't bragging school. So, after I was told this, I floated the question about why I wasn't asked to be in the Hollis program like the other kids I knew who were in it. Now mind you, it is just us in the room that I remember. No other teachers or parents or anything, so I doubt I could ever get any confirmation of what was said. But she told me that the reason I was left out of the program was that I was lazy. Not that my teachers thought I needed to work harder or any other explanation why. Just that I was lazy. And that has stuck with me for the last 23 years. Doesn't matter how much I do or accomplish, apparently I am lazy. So when people tell me that I am lazy, I shrug my shoulders and decide to show them what lazy really is. Ah, but that is just part one. As I was growing up, I used to get horrible headaches. I would wake up in the middle of the night and have a migrane headache of some sort. I didn't know until I got older that headaches are not supposed to wake a person up from being asleep, but mine sure did. I would get up and have to sit up in bed for an hour, even with asprin or Tylenol, and wait for it to subside before I could get back to sleep. As I got older, the headaches got worse until, when I was in 6th grade, I was getting them so frequently and with such intensity, even at school, that my mom took me to see my pediatrician. They ran some tests, but couldn't find a thing wrong with me. The doc asked what was going on in my life, and because of recently starting middle school and the high level of the classes I was taking, he figured they were stress headaches. He suggested that I learn how to destress as best I could and that would help. As it turns out, I think he was right. I started learning how to relax a little and, over the next couple of years, the headaches came less and less frequently. I still will get one every now and then, but it is far from a common occurrence. Still, the combination of the two things was a serious problem. I could either be a high achiever and work hard in school, but have debilitating headaches that would keep me up all night, just to prove I wasn't lazy. Or I could embrace the laziness a little and not be in pain almost every night, but my grades would suffer. For a couple of years, I managed to walk a fine line between the two, but once high school rolled around, all that coupled with the appearance of depression in my life really hit my grades and I haven't ever really recovered from that.

Since then, there always seems to be someone in my life who has made sure that I remember how lazy I am, be it a professor, guidance counselor, coworker, wife...Someone was always there to remind me of it. Sure, I graduated with a class rank of 37 in a class of 317; sure I went to college, failed out, went back again and did great, took 9 years off and then went back again to try and finish what I started; sure, I did some of that while working full time, and at times, working full time and part time; sure, for 7 years out of the last 10, I have worked two jobs, either two part-time, or a part-time and a full-time, to try and support myself and others, often working more than 50 hours a week. Yeah, but that all doesn't really matter, I am lazy. And there is always someone around to remind me of that. Oh yeah, and I am a math major, which most people consider to be one of the hardest degrees in college to achieve, and a math ed major on top of that, so I not only am trying to earn a really difficult degree to earn, but on top of that, I am trying to do it knowing I am going to have a thankless, low-paying job as a middle or high school teacher. But nah, I must be lazy. I say it jokingly, but after all this time and all the people who keep nailing it into my head, despite the proof, I actually believe it. And I haven't been able to convince myself otherwise, even knowing all that I have told all of you. It's hard to make all of what I have done in the last 15 or so years matter to me, while suffering from undiagnosed severe depression, when it doesn't seem to matter to the people whose opinions matter most to me, aside from my parents who have always been proud as hell of me. But then again, they have always loved me and been proud of me, so it's hard to believe they would feel otherwise no matter what I did. Just goes to show ya that you really need to be careful what you say to a kid. You never know when you might change a genius into a mentally-wrecked loser working two dead end jobs whose future is in serious question, just by telling them that they are lazy.